


The Frontier

by Quitebrilliantindeed



Category: Persona 3
Genre: F/F, Implied Relationships, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 09:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3564620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quitebrilliantindeed/pseuds/Quitebrilliantindeed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Minako, Saori Hasegawa takes the train alone. (Post-The Journey, Pre-The Answer)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Frontier

**Author's Note:**

> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  
> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  
> i usually say coherent things here, but?? The end of P3P left me with feelings too big to be coherently explained so I'm gonna let it speak for itself?
> 
> Obviously, spoilers....!

Saori Hasegawa had never taken the train alone.

Even when she lived here, she rarely went far from her home, be it dorm or apartment. When extended travel was necessary, some family member, often distant, had always shamefully arrived to escort her.

This was not what she had expected her first solo trip to be. She sat there with a messenger bag slung across her shoulder, hands buried in the folds of a faintly stained black dress, still not willing to believe that this was, in fact, the truth of the situation.

Of course, she had not expected it to be a happy occasion— hers rarely seemed to be—but she had hoped for something brighter than this.

Anything, indeed, would be brighter than this.

By chance, she had witnessed a news report. It was a short piece on a girl two towns over, whose pristine body had ceased to function without warning or reason. A girl from Gekkoukan High, they said, fell asleep yesterday morning, refusing to wake, no matter how hard she was shaken or called. They took her back to her dorm, where she slept and slept, smiling faintly through the day, then just like that, passed on at daybreak. It was shocking as it was baffling— how, they asked, could a girl, free of illness or injury, wink out so simply, so cleanly? The report held grief below the mystery, a practical balance that served to upset Saori’s stomach in a way she could not explain.

“Minako” was the deceased girl’s name. Saori’s heart stopped. “Minako Arisato.”

And there were dead faces on the screen, a woman with red hair, face blank like stone, mouth moving, no words reaching Saori’s ears.

She got a call that night. An unknown number, which she chose to answer in a fit of fear.

The woman on the other line was named “Kirijo.” Saori could understand that much.

Kirijo-san said she had found the number in “her” phone. Saori mumbled a response, its words stale and lost to her memory.

An invitation was then given to her, by the woman with the cracking voice. She, if she so wished, could come—should come—to say farewell.

Saori knew that there was no option, no ‘wish’ involved. Why, there could never be anything to consider, not when it came to “her.”

So she packed a bag and laid out a dress, old as it might be, and left for the city the following morning.

It seemed that she had not so much as blinked and found herself on the train. It was a quiet affair, the buzz of the car against the rails being the only sound to penetrate her head. Not a soul so much as coughed or twitched, elevating each wrinkle of her dress and tap of her foot to a noise so piercing and obvious that it forced her heart to the top of her throat again and again and again.

They stopped abruptly, gliding with a creak and a whine into the heart of Iwatodai. Saori rose from her seat, hands shifting and clutching at her bag strap, eyes fixed on the floor. The familiarity of the station should have been exhilarating, even if only for a second. Yet she found no comfort in it, only the pressing weight of poor choices and sickening memories.

It was not the greeting Minako-chan would have wanted, but her heart was not yet strong enough to change it. So she stumbled forward, shoulders pressing against the crowd, until her feet found their way to the other side.

“Air,” she thought, “air.” The word echoed inside her head, with each heavy breath, rattling back and forth as the sunlight pushed from the sparse clouds to sear her face. It repeated itself endlessly, so violently at times that it forced her gaze upwards, to the level of all the passersby, blissfully ignorant and free of her loss. It was a selfish thought, crude and oblivious, but it somehow consoled her, wrapping against her chest like a blanket. She was, in truth, almost certainly jealous of them, but Saori chose not to linger on the thought. Instead, she kept her feet moving, pulling heself away from the station.

Softly, she returned to the earth with the distant reminder of the hour she had to waste before the wake began. Internally, she cursed her preparations, angry for how much spare time she had allowed herself in this city. Would it not have been simpler to arrive with just barely enough time to reach the shrine? If she had done that, she would not have to walk around a place so heavy with memories, both good and bad, that could regardless, tear open a barely stitched wound.

Yet still, she let herself wander. Somehow, it seemed safer than heading straight to the shrine to wait there alone—to be in a place both profoundly religious, and containing her Minako-chan, still and breathless in a casket.

 Yes, walking would be easier.

There was a strip mall by the station, or so she remembered. Two stories high, it seemed warm and colorful in the faint air of spring, drenched in the scent of fried food and old book pages. She never went here much. It was too bustling, too distant from her home—her parents never approved. Indeed though, they would not approve of today’s trip either, now would they? A bubble rose inside of her, but she pressed it down, flinching at even the thought. They would never know—they never had to know.

The burger joint passed through her peripheral vision, an orange spot so bright that it demanded some fraction of her attention. Unwillingly, Saori stopped, then reluctantly, twisted her feet to face the store.

“Wild Duck.” The sign read. Yes, Wild Duck Burger. They had eaten here once. She had called her early that morning, boldly asking for a moment—one single day—of her time. She then ran, willfully defying her parents’ orders to stay put, heart pounding and pounding until she could make out her Minako-chan’s face outside the station.

She was smiling. Her eyes had lifted from her phone, red and bright, a smile growing to encompass every inch of her face. The snap of Minako’s phone as she shut it still vibrated in Saori’s chest, even now, so many months, so many tragedies, later. She had closed it so quickly; all to reach her arms out and embrace Saori, to weave her arms tightly around her waist.

Saori’s mouth fell open an inch, yanking her body from the memory. She then let her gaze fall back to her feet, and lifted them clumsily, hurriedly jogging away from where she had stood.

Iwatodai was a beautiful city. But Iwatodai, today, made her ache. Even the streets, which her eyes were so fixed on, seemed duller and greyer than she had remembered. They were not as clean as she had thought—no, they were littered with reddish stains, graffiti that had been barely scrubbed away through hours of work. They were shells of the cults, the suffering, that had plagued their world last month. It should have been relieving, to see it so utterly gone, but that relief was empty, dead, and flickering. At least to Saori. She barely looked up as she walked, save for a quick glance at the sky, an attempt to dodge a person. Nostalgia, she realized, was turning sour—an already overwhelming feeling turned darker by circumstance.

Perhaps this sulking was uncalled for—to return to the place so treasured by Minako-chan with such a heavy heart. After the little miracles of self-healing she had been working towards… it seemed like a slap, to the face, to the heart. But she couldn’t stop it from happening, from pounding into her chest and tearing up all she had worked to create.

Agonizing. That’s what this pain was. It was so far from the full ache of her previous fears and mistakes—no, it was as agonizing as she had felt in that church, one, two, years ago.

Except, she now not wished to die, but wished for death to be undone.

Naganaki Shrine wasn’t far off now—a fact that she was, at last, thankful for. Forcing her gaze upwards, if only enough to meet pedestrian shoulders, she walked towards it, feet heavy and trembling. She swore, if only for a second, that the warm breeze slinking down the road was all that allowed her to move. It picked her up, muscles, bones, and spirit, and carried her legs towards their ultimate destination.

The wind, today, was her friend. The closest friend she had claimed in what seemed like a very long time. The wind, she hoped, although thin and fleeting, was some trace of her dear Minako-chan, calling out to her and grasping her hand. If she could believe that, then perhaps—

At last, Saori’s gaze fell even, eyes fixed on the shrine gates. Her lips drooped, falling open involuntarily with a slight intake of breath, sharp and scared. Her chin was not yet raised, not held high at all. But it was parallel to the ground—out of strength or nerves, she had no idea—but it was there, and that, was something.

Several bikes and cars lingered around the premises—nothing abundant, but enough to know that the deceased had been a special person to more than just herself. Markedly, two figures lingered outside the gates—a girl with mousy hair, and a boy with a cap tossed between his hands. They talked in a dull whisper, eyes heavy enough to set the mood.

Their eyes met briefly, then darted away. Had they recognized her? Saori knew them faintly—as traces of people who had spent their days with her Minako-chan. They were distant, figures who came and went just as quickly, passing by in the halls of Gekkoukan, laughing, crying, chewing lips and biting tongues.

But she did not know them by name, or by heart. No, to her, they were just shadows, just far-off people with whom she shared a single, now-ascended, link.

The second of tension she had felt between them soon dissipated, snapped as the boy rose, stuffing his hat into his coat pocket. The pair turned, quietly passing through the gates, leaving Saori alone outside the complex.

How remote, it felt, all of a sudden, to stand there, not another familiar soul in sight. But she was used to it, for better or worse. Used to isolation, to reclusion.

But she didn’t like it.

So her hand grasped for her phone, lifting it out of her bag, running her hand across its surface. The wake was to start soon, in no less than ten minutes. Still, she wondered if there might be the time to listen to it—to their recording, one last time.

Yes—there was always time for it.

Her fingers shook violently against the buttons, making the phone itself shudder as she walked closer and closer to the shrine. She brought it to her ear as she pressed “play,” then shut her eyes tight, letting the words carry her.

_“This is Saori Hasegawa  of class 2-C…”_ Her old voice announced, muffled through a layer of static. _“…There’s something I’d like to say.”_

Saori stood there, knees pressed together, fingers tight. The warm breeze felt colder now, even cruel, as she remembered the truth of it. The place she had cut the recording—the cut had not left Minako-chan’s voice in-tact. She had started it in the broadcast room, and ended it in the broadcast room. Not a word of Minako-chan’s voice had been caught.

The recording ended. Saori flipped the phone shut, dissatisfaction aching in her belly. It was her failsafe—her strength—but something about it felt small in that moment. Like it only captured half of the whole story—her own half. Not Minako-chan’s.

And it was, truthfully, just as much hers as it was Saori’s.

She entered the shrine on that note, dragged down by the failure as much as she was trapped in the mere anxiety of arriving here. Being strong was not as simple as a recording this time. Maybe it never was.

The wake passed by in a haze—the rituals were too unfamiliar to her, too far removed from the western ones she had cultivated overseas. Pangs of guilt stabbed again and again as she watched her fellows smoothly follow the ceremony, unaware of how desperately she sought clues. Minako-chan deserved better than this. She deserved more.

At least, Saori figured, her heart was in it. Minako-chan was understanding in life, and would certainly be understanding in death. Under that presumption, she tried her best to wash away the guilt, and focus on what was meant to be felt, what was meant to be given.

All the while, her face remained dry—stony, against the onslaught, even now, with her frozen body no more than a few meters away. She was thankful for that much—she need not embarrass herself anymore in this town, nor fail any further in carrying Minako-chan’s spirit.

The body itself was pale, dressed in white, eyes closed like a resting doll. Saori could not find the strength to think of her—it—as Minako-chan. It was a doll to her, lifelike and beautiful—perhaps closer to her grasp than any time in her life. Her heart fluttered at that thought, unable to stare too long, feeling crude and invasive in alternating waves. Worse still, her old MP3 Player was nowhere in sight—more than likely because it couldn’t be burned alongside her. She looked empty without it, somehow sad. Saori had not once seen her without it—she had loved it so deeply. Anyone could tell that much. She hoped, silently, that it was with someone good, who would love it with similar gusto, or at least, remember it fondly as a memento of the girl who had once owned it.

As long as it did not sit somewhere, unused and unloved, Saori would be fine.

Reality broke back to her minutes later. The wake was over, and a woman was standing in front of her, face drawn and pale, hiding sharp, narrow eyes. She was beautiful, even in mourning, and utterly commanding, even with those darkly bruised eyes.

“You must be Hasegawa,” She said, bowing slightly. “Mitsuru Kirijo. I…called you.”

“Yes,” Saori answered abruptly, her tongue dry. “I…I remember.” She bowed, deeper, then twisted her foot back and forth on the shrine floor, digging her feet into the cracks between stones. She had seen her face before at Gekkoukan, and more recently, on the news. She was an important woman—a fact that only seemed to be hitting her now, standing in her regal presence.

“…I apologize for my brusqueness. I knew you no longer lived here, but felt you should still be welcomed.“ Kirijo’s gaze was distant, fixated on a point somewhere far over Saori’s shoulder. “It may have seemed….a bit sudden.”

“Not at all.” Saori’s response was hurried—perhaps too hurried, as Kirijo’s vision seemed to sharpen ever so slightly upon hearing it. “I…appreciate it.”

“And I’m relieved to hear it.” Kirijo paused, head tilted. “She speaks—s-spoke—of you…I thought it best that you know as soon as possible.”

Saori’s mouth tightened, but she forced it to open and respond: “Again… thank you.”

Kirijo nodded, “Yes. I…I understand.” She then turned back to face the shrine entrance, heels shuffling against the ground. She stood still, staring blankly at the gates, hair frizzed by the wind, eyes falling in the shadows of passing clouds. Saori repressed a shudder. Something about her felt inherently wrong—as if her very body and soul had been thrown out of alignment. It was not surprising—yet it still managed to wrack her bones with sorrow.

“I don’t meant to be forward, but—“ Kirijo interrupted, only to pause. She blinked hard, once, twice, then turned her head so her hair could obscure both her eyes. “—I believe she meant something similar to the both of us.”

“I—“ A damp wave of sweat washed against her. Could she…? Of course she could. Kirijo was not _wrong,_ and nothing about it served to surprise her. Yet still, speaking of it aloud seemed…impure. Dangerous. As if Saori still, could not trust the idea of love, even in this purest form.

Kirijo, thankfully, intervened. She turned back to Saori, hurriedly dismissing her comments with a wave of shaking hands and moving lips. “I shouldn’t assume things,” She assured, arms crossed to her chest. “Forgive me. I am… not myself. That was unacceptably rude…”A hand went from her chest to her forehead, running through her bangs, touching her skin with bouts of palpable shame. “On today of all days…” Saori’s lip trembled as she watched this queen fidget, unable to explain why observing such a proud woman falter made her so…so unbearably sad.

“No, no—“ She whispered, reaching a hand out to Kirijo’s shoulder, but not quite able to touch it. “I’m sorry. It’s—it’s fine. I… promise.” Their eyes met, holding one another’s for, fleeting moment. Saori thought she just maybe understood then, exactly what Kirijo had meant. “Minako-chan…loved a lot of people.”

Kirijo’s eyes fell, certainly not from jealousy or surprise, but likely something sweeter, with deeper aches. “…Indeed. She did.” The conversation was waning as quickly as it had waxed—Saori could tell that much. However, she was not bothered by this—solitude might be preferable for both of them now.

So Kirijo took her hands, squeezing them gently between her own. “Thank you for coming.” She whispered. “Mina…Ah—-Arisato…She must be happy to see you among us.” She bowed once more. “You are always welcome in our homes.”

She then bid her farewell, silently, choosing only to bow and nod until comfortable enough to slip away.

Saori turned her eyes heavenward, blinking slowly. Was she, indeed, happy? Of course, she was usually happy. Even when things were so wrong that the entire world seemed swamped in troubles and buried below the sea, Minako-chan would always be smiling. From the corner of her eye, she could still see Kirijo walking away, strutting with as much pride as she could muster in the shadow of her tumbling grief. Minako-chan must have been happy to see that too.

So she swallowed, and followed Kirijo’s footsteps. She walked from the shrine with her head held high, foot by foot, and breath by breath.

Saori Hasegawa had never taken the train alone. She had always been escorted, by someone she barely knew, to places she didn’t want to go. And when she finally went solo, it was with pain in her heart, so heavy that she felt she might break. The thought of doing it again was terrifying, after this experience so surreal and tainted with her pain.

But she would learn.

And she would do it again.


End file.
